Name: Date: TRIUMPH & PERSEVERANCE Night Project Overview You will read Elie Wiesel s Night, a true story about his experience with the Nazi invasion of Poland and his incarceration in Auschwitz,a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. During this reading, you will complete the following activities: Reading Questions after each chapter Chapter reflections Reading activities A final test/project Everything you need is contained in this packet. You will use your class time to read, complete work, and keep track of your due dates. I will be available to discuss any issues you may have and to answer any questions that arise. Your homework every night is to complete your work an stay on track for completion/due dates. CALENDAR May 30 Memorial Day holiday May 31 Hand in your rhetoric projects June 1 Begin reading project June 2 Chapter 1 work June 3 Chapter 2 and the work Complete tragic hero organizer pp. 3-22 pp. 23-28 June 6 June 7 June 8 June 9 June 10 Chapter 3 and work pp. 29-46 Chapter 4 and work pp. 47-65 Chapter 5 pp. 66-84 Chapter 5 work Chapter 6 and work pp. 85-97 June 13 June 14 June 15 June 16 June 17 Chapter 7-8 pp. 98-112 Chapter 7-8 work Chapter 9 and work pp. 113-115 Write final reflection Write book review/critique and design cover Your Notes About Due Dates:
Chapter 1 Activity Directions: In Chapter 1, a number of significant things happen to Elie Wiesel and the other Jews of Sighet. As you read this section, look for important events and for how people respond to them. List some key events in the Event column. In the Response column identify how Wiesel and the other Sighet Jews respond. In the third column, write what happens next in the story. Discuss whether or not the villagers responses to events influenced, at least in part, events that followed. Event Response What happens next Moshe the Beadle is deported from Sighet because he is a foreign Jew The Nazis permit Elie and his family to take only their most precious possessions or what they can carry to the ghetto. If you were in a similar situation and were told only to bring those items you could carry, what would you bring? Remember, that you would have little space or privacy in a ghetto. Item: Reason: Item: Reason:
Section 2 (Chapters 2-3) Questions (pp. 23-46) Initiation to Auschwitz Vocabulary Auschwitz-Birkenau established in 1940 as a concentration camp, a killing center was added in 1942 at Birkenau. Also part of the huge camp complex was a slave labor camp known as Buna-Monowitz. Concentration camp a prison camp in which individuals are held without regard for accepted rules of arrest and detention. The Nazis constructed concentration camps to hold Jews, Gypsies, communists, and others considered enemies of the state. Death camp a camp where the Nazis murdered people in assembly-line style. The largest death camp was Auschwitz-Birkenau. The term was also used for concentration camps such as Bergen-Belsen and Dachau where thousands died of starvation, disease, and maltreatment. Kapo a prisoner forced to oversee other prisoners. Mengele, Josef (1911 1979) senior SS physician at Auschwitz-Birkenau from 1943 1944. He carried out selections of prisoners upon their arrival at the camp and conducted experiments on some of those prisoners. Selection the process the Nazis used to separate those prisoners who would be assigned to forced labor from those who were to be killed immediately. SS in German, Schutzstaffel; the elite guard of Nazi Germany. It provided staff for the police, camp guards, and military units within the German army. A. Explore the relationship between knowing, madness, and belief. 1. Why does Madame Schächter scream? Why does she later become silent and withdrawn? 2. How do people react the first time she screams? How do they respond when her screams continue? 3. Is she a madwoman? A prophet? Or a witness? What is the difference between the three labels? 4. How is Madame Schächter like Moshe the Beadle? Does she, too, know or sense something that others refuse to believe? 5. How do the veteran prisoners respond when they discover the newcomers have never heard of Auschwitz? How do you account for their reaction?
6. What does it mean to know but not acknowledge what you know? When do people do it? B. Consider how the Germans created terror at Auschwitz. 1. How do the Germans orchestrate the arrival of newcomers to the camp? 2. Why don t they tell the new arrivals what to expect? 3. Why do you think the Germans take away the inmates personal belongings? Their clothing? Why do they cut off their hair? Tattoo a number on each person s arm? 4. Why does much of this section of the book seem to take place at night? C. Explore the relationship between Eliezer and his father. 1. Eliezer tells the reader, Eight words spoken quietly, indifferently, without emotion. Eight simple, short words. (page 29) What are those words and why is Eliezer unable to forget them? How do they help explain why Eliezer and his father cling to one another in Auschwitz? 2. How does Eliezer respond when his father is beaten for the first time? How does that response affect the way he sees himself? What does he fear is happening to him?
3. What advice does Eliezer s cousin from Antwerp give his father? How is it like the advice the Polish prisoner offers? What do both pieces of advice suggest about the meaning of a word like family in a place like Auschwitz? D. Consider the way the Germans systematically strip Eliezer and other prisoners of their identity. 4. How does Eliezer respond to the removal of his clothes and other belongings? To the shaving of his hair? The number tattooed on his arm? How do you account for these responses? 5. Primo Levi, who was also at Auschwitz-Birkenau, wrote: It is not possible to sink lower than this: no human condition is more miserable than this, nor could it conceivably be so. Nothing belongs to us any more; they have taken away our clothes, our shoes, even our hair; if we speak, they will not listen to us, and if they listen, they will not understand. They will even take away our name: and if we want to keep it, we will have to find ourselves the strength to do so, to manage so that behind the name something of us, of us, as we were, remains.* Primo Levi, Survival at Auschwitz, translated by S. Woolf (Collier Books, 1993), p. 38. How are Levi s responses to his initiation into Auschwitz similar to those of Eliezer? What differences seem most striking? 6. Wiesel, in recounting the first night in the concentration camp says, Never shall I forget that night, the first night in the camp, that has turned my life into one long night... What does it mean for a life to be turned into one long night?
Chapter 2 Activity Madame Schächter and her son are separated from the rest of their family and forced to travel by cattle car to what they are told is a work camp. Using the chart below, find quotes that seem to be foreshadowing and speculate on what events are yet to come. Event (Quote) What event may be coming? We realized then that we were not going to stay in Hungary. Our eyes were opened, but too late. Select a section, sentence or quote from pages 23 through 28 and write a reflection. Focus on how the section or sentence makes you feel, what it reminds you of and what you predict it might mean for the rest of the memoir. Write the section, sentence or quote here: Reflection:
Chapter 3 Activity Power of Unity: The Jews Chaos and Control: Elie Faith and Memory: Elie What does the Elie remember? What does Elie remember? What does Elie remember? Quotation No. The man now sounded angry. Not fifty. You re forty. Do you hear? Eighteen and forty. (30) There was no time to think, and I already felt my father s hand press against mine: we were alone. In a fraction of a second I could see my mother,my sisters, move to the right. Tzipora was holding Mother s hand. I saw them walking farther and farther away. (29) But the older men begged their sons not to be foolish: We mustn t give up hope,even now as the sword hangs over our heads. So taught our sages... The wind of revolt died down. (31) Explanation (What does the quote say about Elie and the theme?) Elie and thejewish people: Is Failure an Option? Pretend that you are Elie. You are now faced with the idea of man s inhumanity to man. Write a private journal entry about why he feels he cannot pray to God, yet still holds on to his faith. Why does he reject the idea of faith yet still compare himself to Job, forexample? What does night symbolize? Find a quotation about night to use in your explanation.
Section 3 (Chapter 4) Questions (pp. 47-65) Identity and Indifference A. Consider the relationship between Eliezer and his father. 1. Give examples of the ways Eliezer s relationship with his father is changing. What is prompting those changes? 2. What does Eliezer mean when he refers to his father as his weak point? Why has he come to view love as a weakness? 3. How do the changes in his relationship with his father affect the way Eliezer sees himself as an individual? The way he views his father? B. Consider how the process of dehumanization affects Eliezer and his fellow prisoners. 4. How do words like soup and bread take on new meaning for Eliezer? Why does he describe himself as a famished stomach? What did it mean to see bread and soup as one s entire life? (page 52) 5. Eliezer describes two hangings in this section. He tells the reader that he witnessed many others. Yet he chose to write only about these two. Why are these two hangings so important to him? How do they differ from the others? 6. Why do you think Eliezer and the other prisoners respond so emotionally to the hanging of the child? 7. Why do you think the Germans chose to hang a few prisoners in public at a time when they are murdering thousands each day in the crematoriums?
8. When the young boy is hanged, a prisoner asks, For God's sake, where is God? Eliezer hears a voice answer, Where He is? This is where -hanging here from this gallows... What does this statement mean? Is it a statement of despair? Anger? Or hope? (p. 65) H. Discuss the meaning of the word resistance at Auschwitz. 1. What does the word resistance mean to you? Some insist that armed resistance is the only form of legitimate resistance. Others stress the idea that resistance requires organization. Still others argue that resistance is more about the will to live and the power of hope than it is about either weapons or organization. Which view is closest to your own? 2. Use your ideas about and definitions of resistance to decide whether each of the following is an act of resistance: Eliezer s refusal to let the dentist remove his gold crown Eliezer s decision to give up the crown to protect his father The French girl s decision to speak in German to Eliezer after he is beaten The prisoner s choosing to die for soup The prisoners who attempted to stockpile weapons, for which they were later hanged 3. In each act of resistance that you identified, who or what are the prisoners resisting? View the behavior of other inmates from Wiesel s perspective.
Elie Wiesel said the following of inmates who tried to show the killers they could be just like them : No one has the right to judge them, especially not those who did not experience Auschwitz or Buchenwald. The sages of our Tradition state point-blank: Do not judge your fellow-man until you stand in his place. In other words, in the same situation, would I have acted as he did? Sometimes doubt grips me. Suppose I had spent not eleven months but eleven years in a concentration camp. Am I sure I would have kept my hands clean? No, I am not, and no one can be. Elie Wiesel, All Rivers Run to the Sea: Memoirs (Knopf, 1995), 86 87. 4. How does Wiesel try to help us understand why it is so difficult to judge those who tried to play the executioner s game? 5. Wiesel writes that he prefers to remember the kindness and compassion of his fellow prisoners rather than those who were cruel or violent. How does he describe both groups in this reading? Why does he view both as victims?
Chapter 4 Activity Directions: In the left-hand box, draw hate as you think it would look if it were an actual object, person, place, etc. In the right-hand box, draw a scene from pp. 47-65 that stands out a scene that you will never forget. Use color! Explain your choices: Why did you choose the colors and the images that you drew above? What is their significance to you and why are they important? What do your two drawings have in common? Are people born with hate or is hate learned? Explain with examples from real life or the text. Why do you think people hate?
Section 4 (Chapter 5) Questions (pp. 66-84) Faith and Survival at Auschwitz A. Consider how Eliezer struggles with his faith. 1. On Rosh Hashanah, Eliezer says, My eyes had opened and I was alone, terribly alone in a world without God, without man. Without love or mercy. I was nothing but ashes now... (page 68) Eliezer is describing himself at a religious service attended by ten thousand men, including his own father. What do you think he means when he says that he is alone? In what sense is he alone? 2. Why does Eliezer direct his anger toward God rather than the Ger- mans? What does his anger suggest about the depths of his faith? 3. At the beginning of Night, Eliezer describes himself as someone who believes profoundly. How have his experiences at Auschwitz affected that faith? B. Discuss Eliezer s relationship with his father. 4. Why does Eliezer describe himself as afraid of having to wish his father a happy New Year? 5. Describe the encounter between father and son after the services. Why does Eliezer say that the two of them had never understood one another so clearly?
6. How does Eliezer respond when he fears his father has been selected? When he discovers that he has indeed been selected? When he learns his father has avoided the final selection? 7. Why did his father give him the spoon and the knife as his inheritance? What is the significance of such a gift in Auschwitz? 8. How has the relationship between Eliezer and his father changed during their time at Auschwitz? What has each come to represent to the other? C. Consider how Eliezer and his father make a decision that will decide their fate. 9. What choices are open to Eliezer and his father when the camp is evacuated? 10. How is the decision to leave made? Who makes the choice? 11. Is it the right choice? Or is it an example of a choiceless choice? 12. How does the decision help us understand why many survivors attribute their survival to luck?
Chapter 5 Activity In this chapter, Wiesel uses the literary concept allusion. This is when the author makes a reference to a famous person,place, event, work of art, etc. The most popular allusions are to mythology and the Bible. Below are some allusions that Wiesel makes in this chapter and their meaning. You must find the reference in the chapter and comment on its significance. (Why does he make the allusion?) Allusion Where does it appear in the memoir Connect: Why is it significant? Adam & Eve In the Bible, the Garden of Eden is the place where the first man, Adam, and his wife, Eve, lived after they were created by God. It was a perfect place. However, after Adam and Eve sinned, it became imperfect, and they were driven away from the Garden of Eden. Noah In the time of Noah, God was displeased with the wickedness of the people. Noah was the only righteous man he found on Earth. God instructed Noah to build an ark, and Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives, and two kinds of each animal were saved during the flood that wiped out all other living things on Earth. Sodom Because of Sodom s immorality, God consumed the city of Sodom in fire as punishment. Only a man named Lot survived because of his righteousness and the prayers of Lot s relative, Abraham: God sent an angel to lead Lot away from the city before it was destroyed. What point is Wiesel making about cruelty in this chapter with the Biblical allusions? What motivates each man Nazi and Jew in his actions and what does that say about each one? What would keep you going if you were Elie? What would motivate you to keep moving and keep living?
Section 5 (Chapter 6-9) Questions (pp. 85-115) The Importance of Memory A. Consider how prisoners struggle to maintain their identity under extraordinary conditions. 1. After the forced march, the prisoners are crammed into a barracks. That night Juliek plays a fragment of a Beethoven concerto on the violin he has managed to keep the entire time he was at Auschwitz. What do you think prompts Juliek to play that evening? What does the music mean to Eliezer? To the other prisoners who hear the sounds? To Juliek? 2. In this section of the book, Eliezer tells of three fathers and three sons. He speaks of Rabbi Eliahou and his son, of the father whose son killed him for a piece of bread, and finally of his own father and himself. What words does Eliezer use to describe his response to each of the first two stories? How do these stories affect the way he reacts to his father s illness? To his father s death? 3. What does Eliezer mean when he writes that he feels free after his father s death? Is he free of responsibility? Or is he free to go under, to drift into death? 4. Eliezer later states, Since my father s death, nothing mattered to me anymore. What does he mean by these words? What do they suggest about his struggle to maintain his identity?
B. Think about what it means to describe one s image as a corpse contemplating me. 1. In the next to the last sentence in the book, Eliezer says that when he looks in a mirror after liberation, he sees a corpse contemplating him. He ends the book by stating, The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me. What does that sentence mean? 2. Why is it important to Eliezer to remember? To tell you his story? 3. How has he tried to keep you from responding to his story the way he and his father once responded to the one told by Moshe the Beadle? How successful has he been? Discuss why Wiesel titled his autobiographical story Night. 4. What did the word night mean to you before you read the book? How has the meaning of the word changed for you? How did it change for the author? 5. Each night is the end of one day and the start of another. What does that suggest about the need to bear witness? To not only tell the story but also have the story be heard and acknowledged? 6. Why does Elie Wiesel carefully construct the stories of everyone he meets during his experiences?
Chapter 6 Activity Emerging themes in Night. Examine Chapter 6 for themes and how Elie s relationships help to reveal these themes. Who is Elie? Explain how he has changed and who he has become. Elie and his father Elie and Rabbi Eliahu Elie and Juliek What are Elie s feelings for and/or about his father? What does this brief exchange reveal about what has happened to the prisoners? Why does Elie recall Juliek s march and his violin? Find a relevant quotation: Find a relevant quotation: Find a relevant quotation: This relates to the theme of survival because. This relates to the theme of faith because. This relates to the theme of hope and triumph because. Predict: Elie recalls seeing Rabbi Eliahu s son running ahead of the man and next to himself. What does Elie think of this memory and why do you think it is important? What do you think will happen as a result between the rabbi and his son, and Elie and his father?
Chapter 7 Activity In this chapter, Elie witnesses how desperation and being stripped of your humanity affects everyone: the Germans in the town they march through, Meir and his father, and a memory he recalls of being an adult in a the Yemen seaport of Aden. Complete the chart below and connect all three events thematically. Meir, my little Meir! Don t you recognize me You re killing your father I have bread for you too for you too He collapsed. But his fist was still clutching a small crust. He wanted to raise it to his mouth. But the other threw himself on him. The old man mumbled something, groaned, and died. Nobody cared. (pg. 101) German laborers were going to work. They would stop and look at us without surprise. One day when we had come to a stop, a worker took a piece of bread out of his bag and threw it into the wagon. There was a stampede. Dozens of starving men fought desperately over a few crumbs. The worker watched the spectacle with great interest. (pg. 100) Years later I witnessed a similar spectacle in Aden. Our ship s passengers amused themselves by throwing coins to the natives, who dove to retrieve them. An elegant Parisian lady took great pleasure in this game. When I noticed two children desperately fighting in the water, one trying to strangle the other, I implored the lady: Please, don t throw any more coins! Why not? said she. I like to give charity (pg. 100) Why does he tell these stories together? (What is the author s intent?) These examples from the text illustrate the theme of.. because Why does Elie make the comparison between Meir Katz (a different Meir) and his father, Shlomo? Find a quote and compare the two men, then explain the comparison. Meir Katz: Who is he, what has he lost? Shlomo: Who is he, what does he still have? Why does Wiesel make this comparison?
Chapter 8 Activity Death, Freedom and Inhumanity: In this activity you will explore Elie s relationship with his father and what it cost him. In Buchenwald, the Blockälteste (head of the Block) tells Elie: Don t forget that you are in a concentration camp. In this place, it is every man for himself, and you cannot think of others. Not even your father. In this place, there is no such thing as father, brother, friend. Each of us lives and dies alone. Let me give you good advice: stop giving your ration of bread and soup to your old father. You cannot help him anymore. (pg. 110) This is an example of Yet Elie I sat next to him, watching him; I no longer believed that he could still elude Death. I did all I could to give him hope. Why does Elie cling to his own humanity and his father s life in Buchenwald? Why does he not take the Blockälteste s advice? Death as Loss, Death as Freedom: When his father dies, Elie battles his conscience, which has struggled to stay alive during his imprisonment at Auschwitz, Buna and Buchenwald. These words end Chapter 7 No prayers were said over his tomb. No candle lit in his memory. His last word had been my name. He had called out to me and I had not answered. I did not weep, and it pained me that I could not weep. But I was out of tears. And deep inside me, if I could have searched the recesses of my feeble conscience, I might have found something like: Free at last! (pg. 112) Below, you will draw what you imagine was in Elie s heart when his father died and what was in his mind when his father died. Use color, be specific and explain your choices. I imagine this is Elie s heart because: I imagine this is Elie s mind because:
Chapter 9 Activity Elie Wiesel ends his memoir with the American liberation of Buchenwald. Read the last sentences of the memoir. Your task is to draw what Elie sees in the mirror not necessarily literally, but metaphorically, emotionally, symbolically. When he looks into the mirror for the first time in more than a year, what do you think he is really seeing? One day when I was able to get up, I decided to look at myself in the mirror on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto. From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me. The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me. (pg. 115) Explain your choices. Choosing specific pieces of the text at the right, show how your illustration captures what Elie is trying to tell us about life, his experiences and remembrance. What theme was most important to you as you read this memoir? What message did Wiesel communicate to you about life, people and war? Reflect on these questions and write a response that incorporates at least one quote.
Night Final Activity #1 Directions: Pick a character in this novel and write them a letter. This letter should ask questions you have of their actions and decisions and make note of behaviors you admire or question. You should offer your own feelings and opinions, perhaps even offering an alternative decision to one they made in the novel. Your letter should fill this page. This should be your final draft, so it should be free of errors and neatly written.
Night Final Activity #2 Directions: Answer each question thoroughly and with evidence from the text. This means your answers should contain quotes. This is a final test grade. Treat it as such. 1. Which character did you relate with the most in this book? Why is this? How did this character change throughout the book? 1. Sacrifice was a theme that was very prevalent in this book. Who were the characters most affected by this theme, and how did they allow sacrifice to change their lives?
Night Final Activity #3 Directions: Answer each question thoroughly and with evidence from the text. This means your answers should contain quotes. This is a final test grade. Treat it as such. 1. Humanity was something that many of the main characters were striving for in this book. Who was most affected by this pursuit, and how did it change the course of the plot? Directions: Choose one character from the novel and select a gift for them. Draw the gift in the box provided. Explain why you would give them this gift. Why do they need it? What will it do for them? What does your gift reveal about the character? Character: Gift: Explanation:
Night Final Activity #4 Directions: Write a review of this novel. Consider CAPT question #4 when you are asked whether or not the author created a good piece of literature, but go beyond this. What does this novel say about life? Why is it still important? You must discuss the author s style and intent and use at least three quotations from the novel to earn a top grade. RUBRIC 1. The student has used at least three quotations / 25 2. The student has developed an effective organizational structure / 15 3. The student discusses theme, relevance and other important literary devices, like symbolism / 35 4. The student discusses what she believes is the author s intent in writing such a novel. / 25